The Swedish government was accused on Thursday by the parliamentary constitutional committee of having failed with several aspects of its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the committee, the center-left minority administration was not fast enough to implement a test and tracking system, failed to protect the elderly and did not clearly distinguish lines of responsibility between national and local authorities.
“It is … clear that Sweden was not sufficiently prepared before (the pandemic) and we can learn from many of the underlying failures that have been identified,” said Hans Ekstrom, vice chairman of the committee and a Social Democrat legislator, to a hearing.
The committee said that the government should have been quicker in providing a framework for testing and tracking and drafting a law that gives it greater authority to deal with the crisis, in addition to being faster in isolating nursing homes.
“The government’s response was not enough,” said committee chairman Karin Enstrom, from the opposition’s moderate party.
However, the committee did not discuss the controversial decision not to impose a lock-in.
Sweden has been an exception in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic by deciding to implement lock-in and largely use non-coercive measures. The country’s death toll has been higher than among its Nordic neighbors, but lower than in most European countries that introduced the measure.
The government has already admitted that it did not do enough to protect elderly residents in nursing homes.
At the same time, the Minister of Health and Social Affairs Lena Hallengren acknowledged that although some issues might have been handled better, the committee had not pointed out serious constitutional criticism.
“But there are descriptions of things that could have been handled differently, and where one could have found clarity faster,” she told the news agency TT.
According to figures from Johns Hopkins University, Sweden has reported 1,068,473 confirmed cases and 14,451 deaths.
(With input from Reuters)